Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

Good. I was fortunate to meet the Minister in committee in the meantime. The Minister contextualised his speech in preparing for the future and being ready for the economic upturn. This has much merit. However, let us not risk the current tranche of students going through the system. It would not be at all fair to them and what we risk are the lives and education of children and the second and third level students in the system at present.

Where does Ireland stand at present? The Minister is familiar with the programme for international student achievement, PISA, 2006. It showed that with regard to maths and science, Ireland is mediocre and needs attention with 5,000 students failing foundation level maths last year. I notice the Minister makes much mention of project maths. We look forward to this but I would ask whether it will answer all of the Minister's questions with regard to maths because it will start at second level. We had huge literacy problems in the past and we went some way towards solving them by intervening much earlier. I know from practice and from speaking with teachers that problems with maths occur when children are five, six or seven years old. While I commend the Minister on project maths if it is good, he needs to focus on maths problems much earlier at primary level.